Dogs vs Cats

Celebrating our Four-Legged Friends

BY MEL BONDFIELD

Whether you're a dog person or a cat person (or maybe you love them both – like we do at the NFSA), we've got you covered this summer with our season of cool cat matinees and dog day afternoons, screening from 7–13 January.

To accompany these school holiday screenings, we are showcasing more of your favourite four-legged, furry friends in our 'Vintage' collections, and they are guaranteed to delight you.

Cool Cats

If it's cuddly cats and kittens you can't get enough of, our Vintage Cats collection highlights some fabulous felines dating back to 1905, plus a few more modern characters that have graced our television screens over the years. We've included glass slides, television clips, photographs, advertisements and short films like this excerpt from Felix Turns The Tide (1922):

Felix first appeared in 1919 and the early incarnations of the cartoon cat were very popular due to their simple animation style mixed with storylines that mirrored the social and political events of the period. Felix the Cat and Tom & Jerry shorts are featured in our School Holiday Screenings.

Dog Days

If pampered pooches are more your style, our Vintage Dogs collection, featuring some very cute and clever canines, will keep you entertained.

Our collection includes feature film and home movie footage dating back to the 1930s, as well as newsreels, dog shows, advertisements and more.

And if you needed any more convincing that, as the saying goes, dogs are a human's best friend, this 1938 Movietone Newsreel is all you need to see:

Summer holiday screenings

And don't forget to book now for our summer holiday screenings. Our Cool Cat Matinees feature feline superstars like Felix and Garfield while our Dog Day Afternoons include Bolt, Oddball, Red Dog and lots of more of your favourites.

Acknowledgement of Country

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.